When everything in you calls for change

How often do you stay in a situation that isn’t right for you? While everything in you calls for change, for a breath of fresh air, for new challenges? You tell yourself that there are enough reasons to stay put, or think that you still have something to learn where you are now. After every recurring inner conflict, you convince yourself that it will get better. That things need time. Year after year.

In the meantime nothing seems to change,
you feel hollow and tired, lose your lust for life.

Why is it so difficult to let go of a situation that is no longer beneficial? While it limits your growth and development? And undermines your health and diminishes your joy of life?

I am all too familiar with the destructive feeling of staying put while knowing deep inside that everything has already been learned. That the hope for change is an illusion and that it’s high time to leave. I know the endless struggle at this boundary, where you are challenged to learn to deal with what is, and at the same time are invited to move on. I have watched myself stalling, coming up with arguments that this one element of comfort or those brief moments of happiness were larger and more important than they truly were.

I didn’t realise that staying can also be a form of fleeing

‘Staying is always better than leaving. You still take yourself with you’, is how I convinced myself. I wasn’t living fully, but didn’t want to flee. However painful or oppressive the situation had become, I believed I needed to deal with it, with all my spiritual awareness. I didn’t realise that staying can also be a form of fleeing.

I limited myself and fled from the emptiness I felt within me. I fled from the fear of having nothing to hold onto, no safe place to return to. Not being part of a group, no partner to come home to. I felt torn inside, caught between two impossibilities; staying became too painful, stepping into the emptiness too frightening. Those who recognize the situation, may also be familiar with the paralyzing panic that can then arise.

Everything lies hidden within the nothingness

Everything lies hidden within the nothingness. There where everything has yet to take form lie endless possibilities. It should be a joy to step into this emptiness. To feel the hidden abundance, the freedom of being able to choose anew. But oh, how scary we think it is!

All those times I was nevertheless able to gather my courage and at a certain point I listened to the call of my soul. I thanked and honored the the past and dived into the unknown. During those moments there wasn’t a way back. It seemed as if life itself pushed me forth. And however lonely and desolate the trip was, the destination always felt like I was coming home. As if the new place, the new situation, and the new people had already been waiting for me.